


A Fleeting Dream

by Vamillepudding



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 22:06:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17312696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vamillepudding/pseuds/Vamillepudding
Summary: Five times Alfie tries to comfort Tommy and one time he succeeds.





	A Fleeting Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "Anything where Tommy gets to feel loved and wanted and safe for a little while. And warm. Alfie bringing him breakfast in bed (or... tries to, at least. Tommy doesn't seem to eat. ever.), takes him on a trip, or just letting him now how important he is. Could be combined with something angsty, or just full on domestic fluff. Or a combination. Just the two of them having a moment to rest and take care of each other and be happy<3" 
> 
> I....well, you know, I tried. I'm so sorry.

Dating Tommy Shelby is simultaneously the greatest and the most frustrating experience of Alfie’s life. It’s always been all or nothing for him, no in betweens. Praying three times a day or renouncing God altogether, drinking until blackout or staying sober for the rest of his life, staying sane or going completely fucking mad. 

He’s the same with his partners, too. Always was. Ruined a lot of relationships for him, that, and he didn’t even mind because if a man can’t take a bit of clinging, then he’s clearly not the right man for Alfie, is he? 

Tommy, by that account, should have run for the hills a long time ago. 

He wants to, Alfie reckons, he wants to desperately some days. It’ll be night, and cold as all hell outside, and Alfie will wake with a start and find Tommy awake, too, just lying in bed with his gaze fixed on the door, like he’s contemplating how quickly he can make an unnoticed exit. Those moments, Alfie will tuck him closer. Give Tommy one more reason to stay. 

This doesn’t always work of course, seeing as Tommy needs his space more than anyone Alfie ever met. Sometimes, he’ll untangle himself from Alfie’s arms and leave the room. Probably to smoke, but perhaps (and there is always a small possibility) he’ll also get into the car or on a horse and take off.

Alfie never goes after him, always waits for him to come back. So far, Tommy always has. And deep in his heart, he knows that if the worst came to the worst, he’d continue waiting for weeks, months, even years. Maybe a lifetime. 

This, though, this constant underlying fear, Alfie can deal with. It’s part of the thrill, isn’t it, knowing that any moment he might be alone again and Tommy gone forever, like a fleeting dream that only ever stays one night. Half of the fun is the risk. 

But he’s also got certain …standards, doesn’t he? Certain relationship standards that any normal human being would think of as not worth mentioning. Therefore it’s practically a given that Tommy makes a big fucking deal out of every small thing anyone else wouldn’t think twice about. 

And it’s those small things exactly that are slowly, but steadily, driving Alfie over the edge.

1.

It takes months for Alfie to realise that he has never seen Tommy eat anything. Drink, yes, either alcohol or tea. One time Alfie’s housekeeper poured Tommy a cup of coffee, but Alfie thinks Tommy just poured it into one of the plants. 

But food is a different topic altogether. He’s pretty sure Tommy doesn’t avoid meals on purpose, he’s just too busy or forgets. Still not great, but somewhat understandable, and Alfie would let it slide – has, in fact, let it slide for quite some time after that first epiphany. One day though, they are walking down the street and Tommy, not a tactile person by any means, grabs his arm for support and has to take deep breaths before he’s able to will his legs into working again. 

“You alright there?” Alfie asks, and in return gets the horrifyingly casual reply: 

“Fine, just haven’t eaten in a few days.” 

After that, it becomes a habit to try and fix this. Alfie is not a great cook, but he can do basic things like scramble an egg or spread butter on bread. Certainly more than Tommy can do at any rate. So the next time Tommy comes over, Alfie doesn’t lead him into the bedroom immediately and instead asks if he’s already eaten dinner. 

Tommy doesn’t answer immediately, just blinks a couple of times like he never expected that question, and maybe also like he thinks Alfie’s being irrational. Eventually he simply says “no”.

Alfie doesn’t ask about lunch or breakfast, because he doesn’t have a death wish. Gotta be more subtle in order to get anywhere with Tommy, anyway. Being subtle is not his strong suit, but he can at least try. 

“Let’s go to the kitchen then, eh?” he says and pretends it’s the most natural thing in the world, like they have gone into Alfie’s kitchen to get a snack hundreds of times. 

“Not exactly what I came here for,” Tommy says. He does do as suggested though, which counts as progress, and even sits down at the table without any further prompting. 

A surreal sight, that, Tommy Shelby sitting in Alfie’s kitchen. He looks like he belongs in a painting, one of those posh ones with oil colour and all that fancy shit, painted centuries ago by an artist with a name Alfie can’t pronounce. A thing not from this world, too beautiful to come from the slum that is Birmingham. 

“If this takes longer than ten minutes, I’m getting a hotel room,” Tommy says, and Alfie thinks: Definitely human. And a pretty shitty one at that. 

“It’ll take as long as it takes, if that is fucking alright with you?” Despite his words, he is increasing his pace, getting out the pan and cracking eggs inside before the oil has had time to heat properly. A couple of shells land inside the mix too, and when he finally presents the finished product to Tommy, the other man eyes it with barely concealed disgust. 

“This is still runny,” he comments. “And it smells like cat piss.” 

In lieu of an answer, Alfie sets the pan down in front of Tommy with a small thud. The fork and knife he holds out for a second and, when

Tommy just stares blankly, throws those onto the table, too. 

“I’m not eating this,” Tommy says slowly. His eyes are cold, but he’s not yet glancing at the door, so Alfie can push. 

“Yes you are, mate.” 

Alfie feels like he’s coming dangerously close to being stabbed with a fork. It becomes clear that this is not what Tommy had in mind, though, because now Tommy lifts the pan up over the floor and turns it around. The contents slide down onto the tiles, where they look even more of a mess. 

A second passes. Another one. In the third, they’re on each other, passionate kisses on pale skin leaving a trail of bruises in their wake.

All things considered, this project might have been a failure, but it did come with pleasing side effects.

2.

If there is one thing Tommy does even less of than eating, it’s sleeping. The bags under his eyes must be permanently etched into his face by now, a testament to his bad habits open for witnessing by the whole world.

Except the world doesn’t care, seems like, or else they might be doing something about it. Maybe Tommy’s relatives don’t sleep either, or maybe they’re so used to his antics by now that they stopped noticing. 

Alfie notices, and he’s more than a little pissed. He knows for a fact that his business is bigger, that he’s got more men and more income to worry about, so if he can manage to get sleep on a regular basis, why can’t Tommy? 

(Soon enough, they’ll be equally powerful, he’s sure of that, the way Tommy is progressing. And soon after that, the Shelbys will make more money than Alfie could hope for if he doesn’t want to expand. When that day comes, and it’s going to, he can’t help wondering if that will be the end of their relationship, too.) 

At first, he lets it be. Tommy’s a grown man, if he wants to run himself ragged, who’s Alfie to stop him, right? Not his problem if Tommy is looking more like a corpse every day, not his problem at all. 

Then, Tommy takes a bath. 

Baths are a luxury the Shelby household can’t provide. Their tub, and this Alfie knows from experience, is so small it might as well be a fucking bucket, and it’s so gritty that even preheated water and soap don’t do much in terms of cleaning.

But in his house in London, he’s got one that God himself created when he was done with the creation of the earth and still had a bit of magic to spare. It’s big enough for at least two people to comfortable lie in, practically deep enough to swim in, and it’s got hot water coming straight out of the tap, which is a blessing for Alfie’s bad back.

Tommy discovered it early on, and eventually asked if he could use it. It was more of a demand than a question, really, but there was still a tad bit of insecurity in it. As if Alfie would ever refuse Tommy anything. 

Ever since then, Tommy has no qualms whatsoever about making full use of Alfie’s bathroom. Alfie usually leaves him to it, figuring that if Tommy wants company, he’ll ask. So far, he never has. 

Today, though, it’s been nearly two hours and Tommy still hasn’t emerged. Alfie is fully aware that his bathtub is a thing from Heaven itself, but after that amount of time even Heaven would fail in providing an acceptable water temperature. So he puts down his book and goes knocking. 

“Tommy, if you’ve drowned in there I’m not going to be blamed for that, alright? Mine is a very respectable business that comes with a very respectable method of killing. Bullet in the brain is the way to go, I always say. Drowning, nah. Drowning is for the likes of Pythagoras, ancient fucking smartasses who wouldn’t know what to do with a gun if it shot them in the face.” 

It's not unusual for Tommy to ignore his ramblings, but normally he’d at least get _some_ sort of response, even if it’s just a sigh. Today, there is nothing. No indication whatsoever that Tommy hasn’t bolted through the window or slipped on a piece of soap. 

Fuck it, it’s his house, his bathroom, his tub, and his boyfriend. He’s going in. 

Well. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecies, eh? Alfie comes in exactly as Tommy, obviously asleep, slowly slides under the water. 

Alfie doesn’t know shit about the human body, doesn’t have a clue about whether it’s even possible to drown like this, but either way, he much prefers not to find out.  

He crosses the room in hasty steps and pulls Tommy out via grabbing his upper arms. Tommy blinks drowsily up at him. He’s shaking slightly, which might be due to a variety of reasons, none of which Alfie likes. 

“Fucking typical of you to take my joke seriously, for fuck’s sake. If you were planning to give me a heart attack, you have very nearly succeeded. You-“

“Alfie,” Tommy interrupts. His words are slow, but not deliberately. More like he’s having a really hard time remembering how to communicate like a proper human being. “Shut up. Put me down.” Alfie does both. This leaves him with empty hands, so he passes Tommy a towel.

As the other man begins drying himself off, Alfie starts again: “Should have fucking known you’d be incapable of even taking a bath on your own. Should have-“

He breaks off when he sees the look on Tommy’s face. Not a pleasing sight, that. An odd lump forms in his throat at the knowledge that he is the cause of it. “Let’s get you to bed, eh, lad?” he says instead. The relief in Tommy’s eyes is almost palpable. 

Tommy sleeps through the whole night, and some of the morning too. Not nearly enough to take away his bone-deep exhaustion that has surely become part of his personality by now, but it helped. 

And yet. 

And yet, Alfie can’t help but feel that his only contribution to the matter was lifting Tommy out of the bathtub. _His_ bathtub. The rare smile

Tommy sends his way over breakfast seems entirely undeserved on more than one level.

3.

He learns about Tommy’s birthday quite by accident. At some point he stumbles over Tommy’s old army papers, spends a minute or two marvelling at how handsome his boyfriend looks in uniform, and then his eyes fix on the bit of personal information – Name: Shelby, Thomas. Birthday: 21/09/1890.

And that, the 21st of September, that is two days from now. 

The way Alfie sees it is, he can pretend not to have seen this, and they go on with their lives. Or he can try and do something nice for Tommy, Tommy can shout at him over it, and they go on with their lives. 

There is never going to be a time where he chooses the less troublesome path. Bit of self-preservation, that, if he’s being honest. Tommy needs a good bit of upset every once in a while. Without the occasional fight that’s loud enough to be heard in Heaven and Hell alike, he might think it was too easy, too _civilian_. Soldiers, the both of them, in ways that got nothing to do with the war. Always will be. 

Ironically, there is not a single oven to be found in the whole bakery. There is one in Alfie’s house, though, so he tells his housekeeper to buy flour, and eggs, and whatever the fuck else you need to bake a cake, right? 

He doesn’t spend more effort on it than necessary, half-expecting it to end up flung against the wall anyway. Tommy will get annoyed about having food wasted on him, question the purpose of cakes in general, call Alfie a sentimental fool, and make a dramatic exit. Alfie is alright with that. He just wants to do something nice, whether Tommy likes it or not. 

So, on the 21st, he drives to Birmingham, cake on the passenger seat. 

Tommy is on his way out, presumably to drink something or shoot someone, when he pulls in. Alfie honks the horn and enjoys the way Tommy’s face lights up after he realised who it is. Good mood he must be in, to openly show the slightest hint of emotion that way. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, the car now parked on the sidewalk. 

“Woke up this morning and thought to myself, Alfie, it’s been a whole three days since you saw Tommy, so why not be your own shepherd and go see him now. Seems you’re busy though, eh, Thomas?” 

To his great surprise, Tommy doesn’t hesitate a second as he says lightly: “Nothing I can’t postpone. Fancy a cup of tea?” 

“You know what, I rather do,” Alfie says. On the short walk, he expects Tommy to either ask about the package or start a fight over it. 

Instead, there is nothing. 

There’s nothing still by the time Tommy pours tea into cups and Alfie sets the box down on the table. Eventually, he just slides it over to Tommy, who eyes it with a vaguely confused expression. 

“Just fucking open it, mate.” 

Tommy undoes the clumsy bowtie and lifts the lid, only to put it down again. “What am I looking at?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, could it maybe be that you are looking at your bloody birthday cake? I did not know you had gone blind overnight, I really hadn’t.” 

“My birthday cake,” Tommy repeats. Not precisely a question, this, more like he’s heard a foreign term that he hasn’t quite learned the meaning of yet. “But – why?” 

Definitely a question this time. Anyone else asking, it might have been rhetorical, but Alfie knows better than to point that out, and simply replies: “Ain’t ever a proper birthday without a cake, in my entirely professional opinion. We have to celebrate your surviving another year, don’t we? Unexpected though it may be.” 

Normally, this is the moment when Tommy blinks very slowly and leaves the room in stoic silence. Today, he blinks very slowly and says, so rushed that Alfie has to strain his ears to make out the whole sentence: “Can I try it?” 

Not for the first time, Alfie finds in himself the fierce wish to hunt down anyone who ever hurt Tommy and bury them in a nice, deep grave. 

“Yeah, mate, you can try it,” he says and then, seeing as Tommy just sits there frozen like a statue, cuts a slice. Not too big, in case it tastes like shit, but also not too small, because this might very well be the first meal of Tommy’s day, or week. 

Tommy takes a bite like he expects the cake to be riddled with bugs. Can’t be too bad, though, since he just continues eating, now speeding up as though trying to make up for his earlier caution. 

“It’s good,” he says after it’s all gone, and adds, without quite meeting Alfie’s eyes: “Yeah, it’s – good. Fuck, it just tastes-“ 

“Good?” Alfie suggests. Instant regret follows as Tommy visibly shuts down. 

In spite of the countless prejudices about Alfie’s people, he is no mind reader. He likes it that way, would be a boring fucking world if you already knew everything others were about to do, eh? But right now, he can see Tommy’s thoughts as clear as his own: Fear that Alfie is mocking him, frustration that he let himself be set up so easily, anger at his own incompetence and Alfie’s nerve. 

“You didn’t have to,” says Tommy, rather predictably in Alfie’s opinion. “I know you’re busy.” 

“Fuck me if I’m too busy to bake a shitty cake for my boyfriend.” 

“Everyone else was,” Tommy says, then bites his lip and intently stares at the table, every tense line of his body radiating regret. “I don’t need cake, alright? I don’t need you to do anything except fuck me. That’s enough.” 

“That’s enough, eh?” he repeats, unable to keep the derisive tone out of his voice. “Well, as long as you’re happy, Thomas, as long as you’re fucking happy.” 

Tommy’s gaze flickers back to the cake, just briefly, then he’s looking at Alfie again. “Yeah,” he says softly.

4.

“-and I have seen a lot of moronic things being done, haven’t I, some of them by you, so you can believe me when I say that this fucking beats it all.” 

“Alfie-“ Tommy tries, not for the first time since Alfie walked in, took one look at him sitting on the cot, and started shouting. 

“If you try to interrupt me one more fucking time, Thomas, I’m going to actually put this gun to good use, alright?”   
Tommy doesn’t so much as blink, but the doctor who is tending to his arm visibly winces.

What an idiot, Alfie thinks. He shifts closer and notices in dark satisfaction how the doctor’s movements get more erratic. Just as he’s about to try and pat the man on the head, just to see what happens, Tommy gives a slight shake of the head. As if _Alfie_ is the one being irrational here. 

“I don’t see the issue,” Tommy continues in spite of Alfie’s threat. “Nothing happened.” The words might have been more impressive if not for the fact that as they speak, Tommy is having an uncomfortably big number of glass shards removed from his arm. 

Both Alfie and the doctor stop to stare at him. A couple of seconds pass, in which Tommy sighs exasperatedly, takes the tweezers from the doctor’s momentarily frozen fingers, and just pulls the next shard out himself. The wince that follows confirms Alfie’s suspicions that Tommy refused any painkillers.

He points his cane at the doctor, stopping just short of hitting his chest, and says: “Since it’s apparently too much to ask you to do your fucking job, mate, you might as well leave before I fucking shoot you.” 

Predictably, the man doesn’t need to be asked twice. Tommy uses the distraction to drop another shard on the table. The sound of glass hitting metal grates on Alfie’s nerves. It’s not that Tommy hasn’t gotten injured before. It’s that- 

“You should’ve brought backup.” Right, there it is, simple as that. Tommy should have brought backup instead of going in alone. Don’t have to be a genius to reach this conclusion – why go alone to a meeting with a criminal when there are literally dozens of people who could, would and should accompany you? 

But it never even occurred to Tommy to ask. His brothers had no idea where he was, and neither did Alfie, until Tommy came into the Garrison to first order a whiskey and then ask if anyone had “any medical training that might stop me from bleeding out”. A joke though it might have been, Alfie hadn’t been very amused. Still isn’t, not while Tommy’s arm and shoulder are littered with glass and the floor is red with blood. 

“Didn’t need backup.” More flinders join the others. 

“Says the man that just got thrown out of a window.” 

“It was the ground floor,” Tommy argues. He says it lightly, with the beginning of a smile forming on his face, like he thinks this is funny and is inviting Alfie to share the laugh. The sight of those pale fingers trembling slightly as they move to the next wound is enough to make him snatch the tweezers from Tommy. 

The latter doesn’t protest as Alfie takes over, working on removing every bit of glass from Tommy’s body in total silence. His mouth suddenly tastes of blood; he must have bitten through his tongue in an effort to keep quiet. Still, this is better than the alternative, better than shouting. 

If he starts shouting again, he may never stop. 

It feels like ages, but eventually, he gets the job done. Tommy allows a bandage to be wrapped around his arm, looking like a gracious ruler doing a favour to his overbearing subject all throughout, and then gets dressed in record time. Outside the sun has begun to set, but to Tommy, this means nothing except needing a light on to work. 

Part of Alfie wants to ask him to stay. Hell, part of him wants to lock them both in if that will stop Tommy from going into office while his arm looks like swiss cheese. 

He says nothing. Just watches as Tommy opens the door and hesitates for just a moment. Alfie waits. 

The door falls shut. 

The next time they see each other, all the cuts have turned into pale scars that Alfie kisses one by one.

5.

All shady meetings in the history of mankind have taken place in abandoned warehouses. This one is no exception, and it’s not missing the obligatory silent men in suits or the dripping water pipe somewhere in the back either. 

There’s Tommy, too, held in place by two of those suits whose strong grip is the only reason he hasn’t collapsed yet. Not unconscious as far as Alfie can tell, but definitely not entirely coherent anymore, either. He supresses the guilt briefly flashing through his mind at the sight. 

“Have you thought about signing the contract now, Alfie?” This question is posed by Simmons, lowlife criminal who is part of London’s drug trade. If Alfie had expected Simmons to get cocky, he wouldn’t have told Ollie to wait by the car.

But that’s how life is, isn’t it, give in to your good trusting nature just once and the next minute, they bring out your bloody mess of a boyfriend and threaten you to do as they say Or Else. Joke’s on them, Alfie is just waiting for Ollie to stop hanging about like a useless moron, figure out something is wrong and call for backup. 

When this is over and Tommy isn’t currently busy being beaten up, Alfie just _knows_ he is going to be lectured on the virtue of backups, because his lover is one hypocritical bastard who has never let anything go in his entire life. 

Alfie says the first thing that comes to mind, which is “fuck off, mate” and has been his response to most things in life so far.

Getting a punch for the trouble is not exactly novel, but today it’s not Alfie who takes the fist to the gut, it’s Tommy, and for the umpteenth time today, too. Tommy groans and spits blood on the floor. Bruised kidneys, he thinks. Nasty, that. He once knew a guy who pissed blood for a week after. Tommy will live. 

“We can do this all day,” Simmons says in the annoyingly smug tone of a man knowing he’s speaking the undeniable truth. He’s not, because those men never are. “If you just sign, we’ll stop, you know. I’m sure your boyfriend would appreciate it.” 

Alfie is sure of that, too. In spite of his habit of getting beaten up on a regular basis, Tommy doesn’t actually enjoy it. Well, tough shit. Should have taken up another profession, shouldn’t he? No place in this business for wimps. 

And this, right there, is why this relationship has never been doomed just from Tommy’s side of it. Because Alfie is the kind of man who will watch his boyfriend get beaten to a pulp and not lift a finger to help. In another week or so, he’ll even be able to sleep soundly again. 

Another punch. Another. Tommy hasn’t screamed yet, but he just stifled a sob, which is somehow worse. And still, Alfie watches. 

After what feels like ages, like Noah had set to sea thrice over in his ark in the time they’ve been here, in this warehouse, with the stupid fucking dripping pipe, Simmons holds up his arm, and the hits stop. Tommy drops to the ground with no one left restraining him, and just lies there and doesn’t move. 

“I may have miscalculated,” Simmons says, more to himself than anything else. “Alfie and Tommy Shelby lovers, my ass.” 

Alfie works hard on keeping his face neutral, on not giving in to the triumphant feeling that overcomes him now. One more push, he reckons, one more push is all Simmons needs.

He doesn’t so much as look at Tommy as he says: “Some fucking misinformation you got there, mate. If a man went about calling all his whores lovers, all the brothels in the world would be cosy homes.” 

It worked, he will tell himself later. It fucking worked. Simmons stopped beating Tommy to death, his leverage gone, and then when Alfie’s men came in and made sure to kill every last one of Simmons’, there was no one holding a gun to Tommy’s head and using him as hostage. 

Nothing about this is enough to soothe him as he reaches out to help Tommy stand up, and Tommy flinches away and doesn’t look him in the eye. 

Everything has a price.

+1

Truth be told, Alfie hasn’t expected to see Tommy again. A week passes, then another one. Business goes on as usual, with the only exception being that Alfie snaps at his employees even more now. Good thing he’s paying them all considerable wages, high enough to make quitting an option no one wants to take, not even after Alfie literally makes someone cry twice a day.

Tommy never calls, and neither does Alfie. Funny thing, isn’t it, that after all the relationships that ended because Alfie was too clingy, this one’s end was due to Alfie not clinging hard enough? 

He never should have let Tommy out of bed that day. Should have just spent the day exploring each other’s bodies over and over again, instead of kissing goodbye and meeting again in a warehouse. Regrets are all that Alfie’s got left now, and there are plenty of those to occupy his spare time. 

Then, his front door opens one night. Alfie instantly draws his gun, because there is only one person bold enough to just walk in without knocking, and that person should by all rights be in Birmingham. 

He isn’t. Tommy stands in the hallway, drenched from the steady rain outside, looking like he belongs here, like not a day has passed since they last saw each other in this house. 

“I told you to lock the front door,” Tommy says. “You’re asking to be killed.” He walks into the kitchen, possibly for the first time ever doing so without additional prompting. Alfie follows, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu with reversed roles. But Tommy doesn’t make him food, just puts on the kettle. This small choice – tea instead of whiskey – tells Alfie that Tommy doesn’t plan on staying long, plans on being behind the wheel again very soon. 

Well, they’re on borrowed time anyway. Maybe they always were.   
Only after the tea is poured and both of them have steaming mugs in front of them does Tommy speak again. His appearance is even more haggard than usual.

“I’ve thought about what you said,” he says. There is no need to specify what he is talking about. Alfie has been thinking of barely anything else in the past two weeks.

He absently wonders if he should draw his gun again, get in a good shot at least before Tommy kills him. Then Tommy adds, quite calmly: “I don’t mind”, and now Alfie wonders if perhaps he should have asked him to clarify after all, because it seems like they’ve been having two different conversations. 

“Don’t mind what?” he asks carefully. A look of annoyance crosses Tommy’s face, there and gone again in a second. He’s very familiar with this expression, has seen it on Tommy hundreds of times by now. 

“In the warehouse,” Tommy says, using the very slow words of someone who is talking to an idiot. Right now, Alfie feels like one. “You said that we weren’t – that I’m your-“ 

Oh. Right. It’s the same conversation, after all. Now that Alfie is watching out for it, he sees more: The way Tommy still hasn’t quite looked at him, his tight grip on the mug that may end with both of them being drenched in tea very soon, teeth worrying his lower lip in a nervous habit he has never shown to date. 

“I don’t mind,” Tommy repeats. “And then you can just stop with the, the food and the birthday presents and patching me up like I’m some fresh-faced boy who’s never even been stabbed before. You don’t even have to come to Birmingham, eh? I’ll just come to London. Make it easier. And if you don’t want me staying here, I can get a hotel room, too. Fuck, I’ll _buy_ a hotel.” 

“And then you’ll be my own personal whore, will you, Tommy?” Alfie says, just for the sick pleasure of watching Tommy wince. “Yeah, I don’t think so.” He’s not a complete arse, he was going to follow this statement with another one, but before he can, Tommy’s hand catches his in a gesture that seeps urgency. 

“I’m sorry,” Tommy says, loosening his grip. “I know you can do better than me. I’ll go.” And in that moment, Alfie knows with an absolute fucking clarity he’s never had before in his entire life, that if Tommy leaves this house right now, he’ll do what Alfie was always secretly afraid of, and never come back. 

Suddenly it’s Alfie holding their hands in place together, doing his best to keep them there. 

“I only said that bullshit to fucking save your life,” he says, not bothering to hide his anger. “Didn’t know you’d believe every word that comes out of my mouth.” 

It’s quite fascinating, seeing all the colour leave Tommy’s face at once. A miracle in itself that he had some to lose to begin with. “You –“ 

“If I wanted a whore, I’d pay for one. If memory still serves, and you are entirely free to correct me if it doesn’t and I am in fact suffering of amnesia, I have yet to pay you a fucking penny for your time.” 

“I’m sorry,” Tommy says again, skin now a sickly grey, a bit like wet pavement actually, and fuck, Alfie doesn’t want an apology. 

The brutal truth is that he thought Tommy could handle it, like he could handle his abdomen getting systematically bruised. But maybe this is where Tommy draws the line. 

And Alfie should have known that. It’s kind of the point, right, you’re in a relationship and you know your partner’s limits and then you learn to fucking respect them. 

Next time, he’ll know better. Next time, he’ll think of something else. 

Right now, he needs to make sure there even _is_ a next time. 

When Tommy stands up, Alfie is prepared for it and efficiently blocks the exit. “I’ll move aside if you really want me to,” he says. It’s a challenge. Tommy takes a step towards him, but doesn’t tackle him to the ground nor rams a knife into his stomach, which definitely counts as permission to come closer in Alfie’s books. He does. 

Tommy is not a hugger, but Alfie is. While they stand there, Alfie’s arms wrapped around Tommy with the latter relaxing a bit more with each passing second, he thinks that just maybe, Tommy is a hugger, too, after all. 

At some point they move from the kitchen into the living room, where Tommy puts his head on Alfie’s shoulder and allows his hair to be carefully petted. A bit like a cat, only cats don’t have as many knives on them. “Alfie,” Tommy eventually says, and it’s not a warning this time, or resignation. More like a promise, actually. 

“Yes, love?” 

“That was a really nice cake you made for me.” 

“Thanks,” Alfie says, rather pleased with himself, even though he made that cake literally months ago and this is the first time Tommy has brought it up since then, and possibly they have other things to talk about right now. Who cares? Tommy liked his cake. This is great news. 

“But,” Tommy adds, just like he always adds the inevitable _but_ after he said something nice. “Next time, leave out the peanuts. I’m allergic. My throat was closing up every time I had a slice.” 

“Why would you keep eating it?” he asks, interested despite himself to hear what fucked-up explanation Tommy has come up with. 

Tommy, not lifting his head, not moving even an inch from his position, says: “because you made it.”

And that, Alfie thinks, is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This gave me a lot of grief, so I would love to hear what you thought !


End file.
